Times Square's Guitar Center Is an Ear-Splitting Hellhole

Youtube clip captures the store at its dissonant, cacophonous worst

On a normal day in any old suburban Guitar Center, you're likely to hear the cacophonous clanging of a dozen different beginner renditions of "Sweet Child o' Mine," but transpose that experience to the middle of New York City at the music chain's new flagship store in Times Square and it's bound to be something, uh, special. As Stereogum points out, a redditor was kind enough to capture the terrifying splendor of the 28,000-square-foot West 44th Street location on Friday.

It's somehow worse than you might expect.

In the 30-second video above you get a brief taste of the instrument retailer's atmosphere, which sounds something like a swarm of bees, or several different industrial noise records playing at once, or a really bad Rhys Chatham piece, all with a helping of samba thrown in for good measure. In short, if Dante were penning his Inferno today he might've had to add an tenth circle to his model of Hell. Seriously. This is insane and unintentionally hilarious.